In an enterprise such as a large business, administrators/asset managers need to inventory their computer systems for various reasons. However, computer processors do not provide all the information that may be important to know about them. For example, knowing the age of each computer is needed for asset reporting, for depreciation purposes, and for replacing older machines. Computer age also may be important for support, lease contracts, and warranties.
The age of a computer system's central processing unit (CPU, or simply “processor” herein) is a reasonably appropriate way to determine a computer system's age, because the processor is rarely changed. However, there is no age information provided by a processor. Similarly, processors do not provide other information that an organization may like to know about its computer systems, such as operating system compatibility.